Vasse Felix Festival

The Australian Chamber Orchestra returns to Margaret River with three stunning concerts at the beautiful Vasse Felix Art Gallery on December 6, 7 and 8. ACO2, comprising core members of the ACO playing alongside young Emerging Artists, will be led by guest director and violinist Dale Barltrop. The in-demand violinist led ACO2 for its Vasse Felix debut in 2011.

The Vasse Felix Festival opens with the Mozart & Mendelssohn concert, featuring Mozart’s vivacious Divertimento and Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No.12, written when Mendelssohn was only 14. The second concert on Saturday afternoon, Violin Showcase, highlights the talents of Barltrop and the musicians of ACO2 in works spanning the early 1800s to contemporary Australia. Barltrop takes centre stage in his own arrangement of Schubert’s Rondo in B minor, a virtuoso showcase with lightning-fast runs and bewildering range of key changes.

The final concert, Vitality, opens with energetic string works by Vivaldi and Stravinsky before ACO viola player Caroline Henbest stars in Sally Beamish’s Celtic psalm-inspired Under the Wing of the Rock. The festival is brought to a glorious close with Dvořárak’s swooning Serenade for Strings.